Amber's Enchantment Epilogue

*****

"See the truth."

A point of light formed in the middle of the glowing circle and began to expand, forming a circle. The circle grew in size until it was ten feet across. It was contained in the glowing circle of designs on the floor. Once it was fully open, Amber could see another room through it; a room with shelves filled with all manner of strange looking objects.

Amber recognized herself there watching the portal in Vesti's rooms. It was still a weird sensation to be seeing herself in the past, but at least this time she was seeing something she already remembered as her past. She didn't pay much attention to the greetings and formal assigning of herself to Vesti as a temporary slave. She was more intrigued by the portal itself. It seemed different to her senses now; longer in some strange way. She followed herself through it and found herself aware of how much distance she passed through in such a short span of time. Unlike her past self, who saw the portal as a two dimensional shape with no thickness, Amber now saw the inches of thickness that had to be passed to go from the House's portal room and Vesti's room.

"SEE THE TRUTH"

The mysterious voice was a shout instead of a whisper. The shift was violent, without the fading out and in she had been used to. Amber had the impression that someone was trying to focus her attention. Amber stood on grass. It seemed to be a very small park of some kind, surrounded by a fence on three sides and a building on the fourth. There were two people next to her and she could hear them talking.

"I'm offering you an alternative," the man said.

"What do you mean?" the girl asked.

"Tell me again, what you have to look forward to."

"I told you. I can't afford college. I'll have to get a job at the factory. The chemicals and stuff will probably make me older faster than normal."

"Is there no other option?"

"Not really. I don't have the training to be a prostitute. It's illegal for me to move to another city. I just can't beg." The Venturer could see the pride in that last statement even as the girl seemed on the verge of tears. "What other options could you offer?"

"I've been open about who I am, haven't I?" When she nodded, he continued. "I can take you to my world."

"Is that why you let me see you create that strange portal, so I'd believe other worlds are possible?"

"Exactly."

"What's the catch?"

"The only way I can take you back is if you agree to become a slave."

"That's not an option!" she practically shrieked.

"Please, let me finish. Slaves on Destran are highly valued. They are extremely well trained in all the sexual arts as well as many other subjects and skills. They are protected by laws and magic and live long, productive lives. And every one of them has agreed to be a slave."

"You make them sound like prostitutes." She knew that on this world, her home, prostitutes were valued members of society who commanded high prices for their services; services that were not entirely sexual (though many times they were). Young girls spent their entire adolescence training in all the skills needed to excel in this demanding field.

"In many ways, they are like your prostitutes. Slaves aren't paid, but want for nothing. They work hard at what they do, but what they do is such a joy."

"Do they ever wish they were back home; back where they came from?"

"No, because they forget all of that. If you accept, you'll be given a potion that will take your memories away. You'll be able to devote your entire being to being the best slave you can be."

Amber watched as this potential captive considered her options. She wondered if it was always like this; young women and men with nothing much to lose being enticed to a better life. It was as she watched that Amber realized that this was, indeed, a better life; or had been before she had been struck down.

As Amber expected, the girl accepted the offer. That factory must be truly horrific. The Venturer pulled out the familiar stone and opened the portal. It looked different than she remembered it. As she followed them through to the receiving room, she gasped in horror. The portal had thickness again, but now it was yards long, not inches, and this time the edge was transparent to her somehow different vision. The non-space was visible on the other side of the edge, with shadow beings gathering and trying to break through. They pushed against the substance of the portal causing flashes of power that the Venturer and new captive seemed unaware of. There were cracks forming in the wall of the portal tunnel and little wisps of mana seeping out. Worse, one of the shadows started to extend itself through one of the cracks and touched the girl, draining an iota of mana directly from her. As the portal closed in on itself, Amber saw shadows in the room, briefly, before their own non-dimension pulled them back.

{My God, portal shock isn't the distance, it's the shadows! Portals go through their dimension. Dimensional portals are long enough to attract their attention.}

*****

"See the threat."

Amber faded into reality again. Melan Lustren was facing several shadows. Amber was only peripherally aware of the conversation over some kind of trading. Amber was more interested in the shadows themselves. She knew, somehow, that this happened after the other scenes she had seen. The shadows seemed different somehow. She looked around, trying to see just what it was that made them different.

Suddenly, she looked intently at the human woman. Why was she talking to only one of the shadows? It was as if she didn't know that the other shadows were even there. Melan's attention was focused solely on the shadow she was talking to. Amber moved around, unseen, trying to get a bead on just what was going on. There was something different about the shadow that was talking. It seemed more real than the others in some indefinable way.

It was then that it hit her. The shadow was talking. When she had seen them earlier, the shadows didn't communicate in any way. That first time, when the first void portal was opened, the shadows seemed to be "animals". Amber couldn't imagine a yeltin developing intelligence over any length of time. Just how did they become not just smart, but able to speak to a different species?

Melan and the shadow had finished their discussion and Amber watched the two sides trade 100 cases of blood wine for a large quantity of copper ingots. Amber could clearly see the manaless nature of the wine, but even more, she could see that the bloodwine was somehow composed of shadow "stuff", which was confusing since one of the things Amber had always sensed from that dimension was it's total lack of substance. The shadows moved around the copper, forming a circle around the pile. They seemed to just hover there, doing nothing; but Amber could see magic working, a magic type that she'd never seen before. She moved closer to try to figure it out, but then the copper and shadows started to fade out. Amber felt a slow wrenching sensation as her surroundings faded out of sight.

In its place was that non-place she was beginning to be familiar with. She gasped in shock as dozens of shadows came into view. The shadow that had brought the copper over seemed very different from the ones that had come into view. It had more substance, as if it had form and mass, and little streams of mana, dozens of them, were flowing into this shadow from small holes in the walls of the dimension (which she noted absently, was even larger across than it was the last time). Like starving greevils, the new shadows swarmed over the copper, absorbing it in some way. A shadow would hover over an ingot and the ingot would fade from view while the shadow would fade into some semblance of reality. As each bit of copper vanished though, it left a little stream of mana pouring into the shadow, just as the first one already had. Once an ingot was absorbed, the shadow moved to another one and repeated the process.

Amber was curious about just where the mana was coming from. She moved towards the ends of the streams of mana. Looking close, she saw very faint mana patterns at the end of each stream. The patterns were the same color as a cross dimensional portal. It was as if the transfer of the copper between the two dimensions had somehow created a micro portal that allowed mana to flow through. That couldn't be good. She had to get back and warn people what was happening.

As she stared at the micro-portals and the streams of mana, she noticed that they seemed to pulse a bit. Each portal would close and open in its own slow steady pattern; a pattern that reminded Amber most of breathing. The pattern was one she had seen before; the small black holes in the world would pulse in and out in similar individual patterns. While Amber didn't have the theoretical knowledge to explain fully what was happening, she did understand that the mana draining holes were caused by the transfers of copper from her world to the shadows' world. She knew that somehow, the dimensional portals used to gather captives contributed to the problem. And she knew that the shadows were gaining strength and reality from the infusions of mana.

Amber was in a panic. Everything and everyone she cared about was threatened. She had to warn them, let them know about the copper and the streams of mana. Her mind reached out, trying to find and return to herself. Everything went black.

*****

"Sound the warning."

Amber opened her eyes with a gasp, drawing in a breath that she had not taken in weeks. H'Renith spun towards Amber's body, his mouth open but silent as he stared at the, now clearly alive, slave. He rushed to Amber's side, pulling a diagnostic stone from his robes.

"Amber, are you all right?"

"Master! I need to see Lord Grantlo."

"Amber, you've been dead for weeks. You need to rest."

"No! The shadows are stealing the mana from our world. We have to stop them!"

To be concluded in Amber's Victory

I want to give a special thanks to Steve150177 for saving this epilogue. The original version was so confusing that it was painful. I also want to thank, and welcome Dani back as my proofreader. Her work made Steve's easier (he could concentrate on the flow and not the typos). The mistakes that remain, are entirely mine. No promises for when Victory will start.